Why So Cranky, Globe and Mail Editorialist?

What a grotesque farce is Valentine’s Day. Ruthlessly commercialized (why exactly do Grade 1 students need to exchange mass-produced Valentine’s cards featuring Spider-Man?) and breathlessly promoted (“Coming up: 10 tips for surviving V-day!”), it is a ridiculous confection fraught with peril for millions of Canadian men and women whose amorous relations are perfectly fine on Feb. 13 and Feb. 15, but somehow can’t survive the day in-between without conspicuous and expensive displays of mutual reassurance.
What healthy couple are not already reaffirming their love and support on a daily basis? And where are these starry-eyed lovers in the bloom of new romance who need a calendar to remind them to say, “I love you”?

And furthermore, why would any healthy society celebrate in a one-dimensional and, let’s face it, trite fashion something as complex and subjective as love. What is the point of that, other than to perpetuate a simplistic and self-defeating belief in the magical powers of a saccharine ideal that ignores the sacrifice, disappointment, compromise and other unhappy shadows that fall across every durable relationship and marriage?

It’s a day, frankly, that educates our children in the Kim Kardashian school of love. It is without any redeeming quality in a serious world...